To ensure the best physical health, students are routinely told by their families and their schools to take care of their physical health, eat balanced meals, get plenty of rest, and keep up with their hygiene. Yet many schools and institutions never talk about how important it is for students to take care of their mental health, something that also has a direct effect on how young people learn.
Students have so much pressure on them, including the pressure to get good grades and have the highest test scores, and because of that, they get even more pressure put on them to be perfect, from their parents to their teachers and administrators. This stress has been compounded further during the Covid-19 pandemic which has added so much more uncertainty to students’ lives.
In their 2020 Coping with Covid survey of 9,475 students from 573 Kentucky middle and high schools, the Kentucky Student Voice Team found that 23% of middle school students reported feeling more anxious with the onset of the pandemic and 42% of high school juniors and seniors felt that way. Additionally, the Student Voice Team found, 27% of middle class students reported feeling depressed during the early days of the pandemic while a full 46% of poor students felt the same.
As a student, I go through this myself. Getting A’s is very important to my parents, and because of that, it is to me. Some nights, I don’t get to bed until midnight because the stress of finishing my homework to keep my good grades is so great. I feel as though I can’t even close my eyes. In fact, now going to sleep is the one of my biggest problems, trying to clear my mind of everything that is going on around me to try and get a good night’s sleep.
Some nights, I don’t get to bed until midnight because the stress of finishing my homework to keep my good grades is so great. I feel as though I can’t even close my eyes.
This is why I find comfort in fairy tales or just fantasy in general. It’s an escape, a way for me to get away from everything in my life. That is probably one reason some of my friends see me as childish. They see me as a person who is always happy and the reason for that is because I have learned to smile no matter what. I don’t want them to worry about me, so instead I just smile and act like like the perfect child. To be a perfect child, you have to follow the rules, smile, always be happy, and act confident.
Recently, it seems like everything is getting harder. I can’t seem to focus, and nothing is making sense. Because of this, it’s getting harder to keep my cool/keep my head up, and continue to act like everything is ok, when it’s not.
I’m beginning to think that I might not be as strong as I thought I was, and I’m starting to dread school more and more. I don’t feel like I have the will to get up and get ready to go to school. It’s like I’m stuck in the middle of the ocean, trying to keep my head up above the water, but as time continues to go on, I feel weaker and weaker. All I want to do is run away to a far off land, somewhere I can finally breathe, and take a break, somewhere I don’t feel the constant need to be perfect. Somewhere I can relax and just be me, be who I am without the fear of judgment. I want to be free, free from all the rules, free from judgment, free from work, just free.
I have a friend who skipped a lot of school due to her anxiety. She was bullied which made her fall into depression. Every time she tried to talk to people about how she felt, she was shrugged off and told to get over it. She was expected to get straight A’s, but due to everything that was happening, she didn’t.
Students are already dealing with stress from their school, their teachers and their parents; it just keeps piling up. And since many students weren’t taught how to deal with it, they end up drowning in a pit of stress, anxiety, and depression. Everything around them starts crumbling and they can barely see the light anymore. They fight, scream, and try to reach out for a hand, for someone to help them, but in the end, many just give up. A lot of people don’t see it as a problem, and they were never taught how to deal with it or stop it before it becomes too powerful for them to handle anymore.
Students are already dealing with stress from their school, their teachers and their parents; it just keeps piling up.
Symptoms of depression include loss of weight or weight gain, sleep changes (such as insomnia), loss of energy (feeling sluggish/physically drained), and unexpected aches and pains, and as these symptoms seem more widespread than ever as young people come out of a global pandemic, schools should start seeing the effects for years to come. A study in the Canadian Journal of Adolescent Health showed that high school students with recent signs of depression are over twice as likely to drop out of school than other teens. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, about 30 percent of college students report that stress has negatively impacted their academics. So why, in addition to physical health, don’t we learn more about mental health and illnesses?
If we were able to learn more about mental health and these signs, we would be able to alleviate them and help people get better, before it becomes too much and spins out of control. This isn’t just for students, but for everyone. By learning and teaching–and even just talking–about mental health more in school, the education system could support students to be more successful and improve so many lives.
Kayla Cruz is a part of the Kentucky Student Voice Team and Young Authors Greenhouse’s 2021 Education Justice Writing Cohort. She is an eighth grader at Leestown Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky.
